Printer permissions between Win7 & XP

grindy · 10 Apr 2011

Here's my situation:

Computer 1 is Win7 with HP printer attached via USB.
Computer 2 is XP accessing printer via wireless lan.

There are 4 profiles on the XP machine, 2 admins - 2 non-admin.
The 2 admins on this machine can print to the printer, no problem.
The 2 non-admins can't use the printer unless they first access the Win7 machine by entering an admin password. I don't want the 2 non-admins to do this (my children), and I don't want to add them as admins on the Win7 machine.

Surely it's possible to share the printer on the Win7 machine without them having admin privileges. How do I do this please.

Night Hawk · 10 Apr 2011

That's what the HomeGroup feature is intended for. One guide that seems to work for printing from a 7 machine when on XP machines or the reverse can be seen at Set Up Your Home Network, Windows 7 Edition

The 3 page guide there may be a solution for you since it goes into how to simply set the network printer as default on the other machines. Note the user name and password must be set to remember on the 7 system however while none is entered on the other machines to see this work. Refer to page #2 for the "Use a Windows 7 Printer From XP or Vista" portion of the guide there.

Shootist · 10 Apr 2011

grindy said:

Here's my situation:

Computer 1 is Win7 with HP printer attached via USB.
Computer 2 is XP accessing printer via wireless lan.

There are 4 profiles on the XP machine, 2 admins - 2 non-admin.
The 2 admins on this machine can print to the printer, no problem.
The 2 non-admins can't use the printer unless they first access the Win7 machine by entering an admin password. I don't want the 2 non-admins to do this (my children), and I don't want to add them as admins on the Win7 machine.

Surely it's possible to share the printer on the Win7 machine without them having admin privileges. How do I do this please.

How about creating user accounts on the 7 PC that match the users on the XP PC and give them rights to print to that printer.
That way when they try to print to the printer attached to the 7 PC all they have to do is enter there user password.

Of course you could make this much easier if the printer was on the network and not attached to one PC.
If the printer does not have any networking ability then you could get a Print server.

grindy · 10 Apr 2011

Night Hawk said:

That's what the HomeGroup feature is intended for.

Well, that's interesting - since as soon as you begin setting up a "HomeGroup" it specifically says that it's for lans where all PC's are Windows 7.

However, I did go to the link you suggested and will try a couple of suggestions there.

Thx

Shootist · 10 Apr 2011

It also says that from a XP PC, something about, when you try to connect to the printer on 7 you will get a username & password dialog. Type in both and tick/click/put a check market in Remember my password/credentials.

If YOU do that THEY will not be prompted again and I think the password is only good for the printer.

Night Hawk · 11 Apr 2011

The easiest network configuration will always be seen with Windows 7 on every machine when going to use the HomeGroup feature. But that's also what comes with 7 for configuring set ups like htis.

That's one of the reasons I suggested the guide there since it goes into seeing things set up when other machines are running one of the previous versions which is how you have things there. That was an updated guide by PC World seen there while some other older ones were discussing use of the 7 RCs when they were first seen.

The How-To-Geek site has another older guide to lookover which may be a help as well seen at Share Files and Printers between Windows 7 and XP

That one goes further into explaining how to set up a second login account for printing which is password protected. That would be separate from the 7 machine's default admin account you already have where they log into that instead for printing jobs.

Shootist caught onto that partially there when noting the remembered password. The login account itself will only allow access to the printer and any shared folders you add let's say for a place to toss print jobs for one example. They wouldn't have any other access to the 7 host since you are not enabling the remote desktop in any way.